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CHAPTER 25
'I thought you were going to knock,' I said, as Ethan went to open the door.
'Trust me, I did,' he replied. 'He knows we're here.'The music ballooned outwards as he opened the door, Britney Spears' I'm A Slave 4 U, and I walked into the club to see a routine I'd seen the girls do many times before, a tacky dance involving fake rubbery pythons that spent more time being rubbed between slick thighs than they did being hung over shoulders as per the Britney video. The décor was the same tasteless gaudy style it had always been – lots of red velvet, leopard print and satin, pock-marked with stains I didn't even want to think about. The whole place still stank of booze, baby oil and cigar smoke, because Oscar never gave a shit about the smoking ban and smoked wherever the fuck he wanted in his own gaff.I even recognised a couple of the girls, who had perfected the art of looking like they were getting off on the thrill of showing their tits while dancing with a rubber snake, pRelated chapters
Her Worst Nightmare CHAPTER 26
He sniffed, turning on his heels and walking over to behind the bar, where he fetched himself a glass and poured a large measure from the same bottle that Rosier was drinking from.'It's a shame really,' he said with a shrug that told me it wasn't quite the shame he said it was. 'But I'm not really left with any choice. If I had a choice, I'd keep you around, not in that get-up, mind you, but I'd keep you with me, really I would.''Which means what exactly?''It means, Casey sweetheart, that I've got to get you off my patch. Remember what I told you about being a liability? Well, turns out you're a bigger liability than I thought. I can't so much as turn around without bumping into one of those bastard Angels and I need them gone, which means I need you gone.'Oscar put the glass down and leant on the bar.'What do you reckon, Ros?'Rosier, who had been sizing me up like I was a prize cattle at the market the whole time Oscar had been talking, shrugged, his interes
Her Worst Nightmare CHAPTER 27
I stared at it, biting the skin around the edge of my fingernail.'Up yours, Oscar,' I whispered. 'I'm going to respect the fuck out of this.'I poured myself a large measure. Larger still. Drank. Relished the heat.It wasn't going to be enough. Four hundred pounds a bottle and it wasn't worth shit to me. Not while the bassline pounded so strongly in my ears, not while the blood rushed to my head in waves so powerful that I wanted to drop to my knees and let myself drown in it all, let it take me under and hold me there until it filled my nose, my mouth, my throat.Groaning, I pressed my head against the side of the cabinet and twisted so I could see the desk, the glass still clutched into my chest like a life-jacket I knew was never going to save me.The door to the office clicked open suddenly, making me jump and I turned violently towards it to see Ethan standing in the doorway.I froze, perfecting my rabbit in headlights look as the guilt choked me.He smirk
Her Worst Nightmare CHAPTER 28
'You know something?' he said, almost bitterly. 'Every hour with you seems to bring a new revelation. For someone who's spent much of the past few years high as a kite, you don't miss the detail in anything, do you?'I bristled at his words. 'You know, your self-imposed exile has left you needing to work on your people-skills. Maybe you could take a training course or something? Pretty sure the local college will have something right up your street.'I slammed the bottle back down on the table-top harder than I'd meant to. It juddered, rolling on its base and began to topple, but just as my hand went to reach for it, I felt the air move, like the gentlest of breezes and the bottle stopped on an impossible slant, suspended in its fall.My gaze whipped towards Ethan, who was still hunched over the table, except now one of his hands was pointing palm outwards towards the bottle. With one small flick of his fingers, he pushed the bottle back into its upright position on the tab
Her Worst Nightmare CHAPTER 29
'You're looking for the horns, aren't you?' Ethan said, one eyebrow raised, brushing off my gawping stare with a shrug. 'It's okay, it's only natural.' He ruffled his hair, parting it near the front with his fingers. 'See? Nothing there, I promise. You also won't find any Devil's hooves or a forked tail for that matter, although you're more than welcome to look for the tail.'He shot me a brash grin, but then looked away quickly, a self-conscious flush rising to his cheeks.'Why did you tell me that?' I said. My mouth was stunned-dry. I wanted to pick up the bottle and take a drink but was afraid he'd see my hand shaking.'About the tail?''About the book. About your parents.'The paper angel remained on the table in front of me. I hadn't touched it. Couldn't.He rolled his eyes. 'Right, so is this where you tell me I'm spinning you another yarn?''No. What I meant was, you didn't need to tell me that. You could have lied about the book.''You
Her Worst Nightmare CHAPTER 30
Everything began clicking into place then. The Angels. His parents. It was like watching someone cracking open a safe, hitting each number of the code in turn, getting closer and closer to their goal, except this safe didn't contain any treasure. Just a dark and horrible truth.'Holy shit,' I gasped, feeling my stomach flip. 'The last Cherubim that came down. You said it came for a disciple. It came for your parents, didn't it? That's why it was here?'He raised the bottle again in mock-tribute. 'Give that girl a gold star.'I said nothing for a moment. Outside, the sun was beginning to set, shrouding the city in violet and orange hues that made it look even more like a painting in a gallery. Somewhere out there, hidden in another world under the Vatican, were secrets mankind could only dream about. So much power kept under wraps. Truth buried beneath the ruins of Rome. The whole idea of it was like a movie plot and fuck, yes , it sent goose-bumps over my skin to thin
Her Worst Nightmare CHAPTER 31
'Are you okay?'Ethan's voice was coming from miles away. Muffled by water fathoms deep. Travelling through dimensional worm-holes stretching across countries and continents.I heard it. I knew he was there, standing right next to me as I stared up at the darkening sky through the window. I knew he was looking at me, his gaze no doubt searching, burying, in the way it always did when he looked at me. I knew I should answer him, but I couldn't.I was thinking about the crucifix. The small, slightly tarnished silver crucifix I used to wear on a chain around my neck when I was a kid. I hadn't thought about it in years, not since I'd dropped it down the drain outside the block of flats where we lived, staring into the dark hole and wondering what it would be like to float away with it.'Casey?''I stole a crucifix from my mum once,' I said, still looking up at the skies, as if I was looking at them for the first time.'You stole it?''Yeah. I was walki
Her Worst Nightmare CHAPTER 32
Numb the pain.I wanted something now, not to numb the pain though, but to wipe what I'd seen from my head.How could I lock away what he'd shown me?There wasn't a trinket box big enough to hold that horror.Behold the Seraphim , he'd said. Born of fire . The Great Winged Serpents. Caretakers of the Throne. Destroyers of the First. Changeless. Eternal . The Highest of the Most High . They are your gods. They are your saviours, your judgement and your damnation.There were four of them. Four huge creatures, each with twelve wings of fire that burned so brightly it was difficult to look upon them. Their skin shone with coppery scales and their serpent tails, stretched long behind them, twisting and curling together as they flew, spinning a never-ending maelstrom around the empty Throne of the Angels.Their faces were distant echoes of humanity, as if at some point, the two races had been connected somehow. A sleekness to their sharp cheekbones. A semblan
Her Worst Nightmare CHAPTER 33
'The problem with Rome,' Ethan said, 'apart from the overpriced coffee, the ruthless pick-pockets and the vicious gangs of zealous tourists, is that there's so many Watchers here that the worm-holes can only be used to travel short distances. They're just big enough to get over or under the next trip-wire, before we have to switch and find another route. It's not easy, but it's doable.'He fiddled with his hair as he looked in the mirror, brushing it one way, before frowning and brushing it in the opposite direction.'Of course, that's not taking into consideration the possibility that any of the worm-holes could have been discovered.''And if they have?' I asked, leaning against the bathroom doorway, my gaze coveting the firm lines of his shoulders and the nape of his neck, curling one lock of my own hair around my finger as I watched him. My hair was still slightly damp from the shower I had taken, starting out as hot as I could bear, only to give myself a blast of
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